There are pros and cons to the provincial government’s deal to acquire more than half a million acres of prime woodland in southwestern Nova Scotia from Resolute Forest Products Inc.

But the advantage which would have tipped the scales in favour of the province anteing up — as opposed to effectively ceding such a massive natural resource to private interests — is that Nova Scotians regain control of the asset.

The obvious snag which would have kept those scales wobbling as the government weighed its options leading up to Monday’s announcement was that the province was about to assume $117.7 million in new debt to add to the existing debt of $13.3 billion.

“It is and it was a heavy consideration for us when you talk about adding to the debt of the province, because everything that you pile into that creates further stresses in the future, particularly in difficult economic times,” Premier Darrell Dexter told The Canadian Press.

But, all things considered, Dexter and company made the prudent choice in aquiring the asset on behalf of the province.

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality faced a somewhat similar conundrum — on a much smaller scale — back in the spring, when presented with the option of buying Sydney harbour’s “greenfield site,” ostensibly to prevent private interests from purchasing that parcel of land and establishing a coal-handling facility there.

In a blink, the CBRM agreed to pay $6 million for a few hundred acres of land, the value of which reportedly lies in its potential as the future site of a container terminal. Almost seven months later, things seem to have gone quiet on that front. Yet, if the greenfield site is to reach its potential as an economic driver, it will require millions of dollars in private investment for a container terminal; perhaps even for a less lofty project.

The 550,000 acres that the provincial government is taking on has real value — as opposed to potential value — largely in the trees that grow on it. Ideally, the province will carefully cede management control of some of that land to small businesses, co-operatives and community groups that have an eye to adding value to the resource.

As the premier said, licences and stumpage fees will help offset debt servicing fees. And the deal will help the province meet its commitment to preserve 12 per cent of Nova Scotia’s land mass by 2015 (though it will make it more difficult for the government to keep its promise of having the books balanced by next spring).

NewPage pensioners will be wondering — with reason — why their pension plan remains underfunded while the government has essentially agreed to fully fund the pension plan for former Bowater Mersey mill workers as part of the deal with Resolute Forest Products. Dexter must address that inconsistency. Though that doesn’t take away from the value of the deal in the province’s southwest based on its own merits.

Sometimes a government acquiring property on behalf of the people is a good thing. And sometimes it’s questionable. Nova Scotia’s acquisition of more than half a million acres of prime woodland is a good thing.